The jump rig smelled like ozone and burnt decisions.

  You don’t travel between timelines the way you travel between planets. You don’t walk through portals or hop drives. You splice, one tangled thread of existence into another, and pray the tear doesn’t spread.

  My rig was old. Illegal. Mostly made of things that had never been meant to exist in the same space, let alone the same equation. A coffin-shaped capsule lined with neural gel and a web of entangled filament pulled from a retired surveillance satellite that used to spy on corporate dreams. I didn’t name it. Naming ships is for people with plans.

  The broker stood by the entry hatch, arms crossed, watching me suit up like she was already planning the obituary.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "You sure you can anchor a re-entry solo?" she asked, tone halfway between curiosity and accusation.

  "Nope," I said. "But the guy I’m bringing back probably can."

  She didn’t laugh. She never laughed.

  I wasn’t being modest. I couldn’t anchor the return jump. Not anymore.

  The neuro-grafting that makes clean jumps possible... threading cognition across timelines without tearing.... breaks down after too much exposure. Too many fractures, too much noise in the signal. My mind’s been stretched too many times, pulled through too many unstable dimensions like cheap wire. I was jump burned. Technically functional. Medically trash.

  But the other version of me? He was still intact. Never jumped, never burned. Still whole enough to act as a proper anchor. Which meant he could guide the rig through collapse.

  Which meant I needed him more than he needed anything.